How Exoplace moved off a failed build without losing a creator

A previous agency got Exoplace to beta and carried it to 5,000 users. Then it stopped keeping up: artwork took six seconds to load, minting on Ethereum cost creators more in gas than many pieces sold for, and the interface felt like a database, not a gallery.

The advertisers its business depended on wanted a mainstream audience the app couldn’t keep: new visitors left before a gallery loaded, and connecting a wallet scared off anyone new to crypto. Every rebuild quote meant months of standing still and one risky switch, and the founders were afraid of losing creators on the way.

We rebuilt Exoplace beside the live marketplace, so creators and collectors never stopped. The new version runs on Polygon with Exoplace’s own contracts, and every upload is compressed for the gallery without touching the original.

The move itself was built early, not left to the end. Every week we ran the full migration on a copy of the live data and checked every account, listing and NFT against the original. By cutover weekend it had been rehearsed nine times.

Users signed in on Monday with the wallets they already had and found every piece where they had left it. Support had a normal week, and every NFT carried over.

Off the old build, Exoplace proved its advertising model with a live audience, and creators stopped paying to mint. Within a month it shipped what the old app couldn’t: minting open to every creator, not just the ones who could afford the gas.